Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

First Edition: July 30, 2018

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

Kaiser Health News:
1,400 Nursing Homes Get Lower Medicare Ratings Because Of Staffing Concerns
Medicare has lowered its star ratings for staffing levels in 1 in 11 of the nation’s nursing homes — almost 1,400 of them — because they either had inadequate numbers of registered nurses or failed to provide payroll data that proved they had the required nursing coverage, federal records released last week show. Medicare only recently began collecting and publishing payroll data on the staffing of nursing homes as required by the Affordable Care Act of 2010, rather than relying as it had before on the nursing homes’ own unverified reports. (Rau and Lucas, 7/30)

Kaiser Health News:
Mining A New Data Set To Pinpoint Critical Staffing Issues In Skilled Nursing Facilities
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is not known for linguistic playfulness. Nonetheless, at least one person there must have been chuckling when it named its rich new data source for nursing home staffing levels the Payroll-Based Journal, or PBJ. Like that classic sandwich, the PBJ data set is irresistible. CMS created it to fulfill a requirement of the Affordable Care Act to improve the accuracy of its five-star staffing ratings on Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare website. The data set contains payroll records that nursing homes are required to submit to the government. (Rau, 7/30)

Kaiser Health News:
Drug Trade Group Quietly Spends ‘Dark Money’ To Sway Policy And Voters
In 2010, before the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress, the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbying group was a very public supporter of the measure. It even helped fund a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign backing passage of the law. But last year, when Republicans mounted an aggressive effort to repeal and replace the law, the group made a point of staying outside the fray. (Hancock, 7/30)

Kaiser Health News:
Medicare Reconsiders Paying For Seniors’ Spine Operations At Surgery Centers
Medicare is reviewing whether seniors should undergo spine surgeries at same-day surgery centers, the government-run health program announced Wednesday, five months after a USA Today Network-Kaiser Health News investigation revealed a spate of patient deaths following the procedures. The proposal states that Medicare officials will examine whether these procedures “pose a significant safety risk” to patients and continue to “meet the criteria” for Medicare payment. (Jewett, 7/30)

The Associated Press:
Study: 'Medicare For All' Bill Estimated At $32.6 Trillion
Sen. Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for all" plan would increase government health care spending by $32.6 trillion over 10 years, according to a study by a university-based libertarian policy center. That's trillion with a "T." The latest plan from the Vermont independent would require historic tax increases as government replaces what employers and consumers now pay for health care, according to the analysis being released Monday by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. It would deliver significant savings on administration and drug costs, but increased demand for care would drive up spending, the analysis found. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 7/30)

The New York Times:
Meet The Rebate, The New Villain Of High Drug Prices
An increasingly popular culprit in the debate over high drug prices is the pharmaceutical rebate, the after-the-fact discounts that form the heart of the nation’s arcane — many would say broken — market for prescription drugs. Now, a growing chorus wants to get rid of them, or at least change the way they are applied after drug companies have already set their prices. Rebates, critics say, have pushed up the list price of brand-name drugs, which consumers are increasingly responsible for paying. Insurers generally get to keep the rebates without passing them along to their members. (Thomas, 7/27)

The Hill:
Dems Court Conservative Firebrand In Medicare Drug Fight
The North Carolina Republican, a conservative firebrand and close ally of President Trump, has built a political career around efforts to shrink government and promote free markets. But he also supports the notion of empowering Medicare to negotiate pharmaceutical prices on behalf of seniors — an idea Republican leaders have devoutly rejected since they enacted the Part D drug benefit in 2003. (LIllis, 7/29)

The Washington Post:
New Veterans Affairs Chief Plans To Reassign, Sideline Trump Loyalists Now In Power
In one of his first acts as President Trump’s Veterans Affairs secretary, Robert Wilkie intends to reassign several high-ranking political appointees at the center of the agency’s ongoing morale crisis and staffing exodus, according to three people familiar with his plans. Wilkie, who will be sworn in Monday, wants to form his own leadership team, these people say, and to ease lawmakers’ continued concern that VA, historically a nonpartisan corner of the government, has become highly politicized. He discussed the proposed personnel moves with Trump in recent days aboard Air Force One, while en route to a veterans convention in Kansas City, Mo., said an official close to the White House who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. (Rein, 7/29)

Politico:
Trump Policy Shop Filters Facts To Fit His Message
President Donald Trump’s appointees in the health department have deleted positive references to Obamacare, altered a report that undermined the administration’s positions on refugees and added anti-abortion language to the strategic plan — part of an ideological overhaul of the agency’s research office. While every administration puts its imprint on the executive branch and promotes ideas that advance its own agenda, this one has ventured several steps further — from scrubbing links to climate change studies from an Environmental Protection Agency website to canceling an Interior Department study on coal mining risks and suppressing reports on water contamination and the dangers of formaldehyde. (Diamond, 7/28)

Politico:
HHS Official Who Spread Conspiracy Theories Forced Out
Ximena Barreto — a Donald Trump political appointee who used social media to spread conspiracy theories about a supposed pizza shop sex ring and made other inflammatory remarks — was escorted from Health and Human Services Department headquarters Friday, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation. Barreto resigned, the individual said. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An email sent to Barreto’s HHS account Friday night produced a bounce-back message that the message was “undeliverable.” (Diamond, 7/27)

The Wall Street Journal:
Inside The Trump Administration’s Chaotic Effort To Reunite Migrant Families
For months, federal immigration officials along the 268-mile stretch of border that separates New Mexico and West Texas from Mexico had been testing a policy of separating migrant parents from their children. What they didn’t plan for was how to reunite them. When a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reconnect more than 2,600 children separated from their families after a national outcry, the two government agencies in charge—the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services—didn’t have a firm grip on the number of children involved or exactly where they were. (Malas and Caldwell, 7/27)

The New York Times:
‘Why Did You Leave Me?’ The Migrant Children Left Behind As Parents Are Deported
Adayanci Perez Chavez, who was separated from her father when they crossed the border from Guatemala more than two months ago, has watched as one playmate after another has checked out of the migrant children’s center in Michigan where they have spent their days studying, playing and meeting with their case managers. One by one over the past few weeks, 90 percent of the children at the center, managed by Bethany Christian Services in Kalamazoo, have been put on planes and reunited with parents who had been held at immigration detention centers across the country. (Jordan, 7/27)

Politico:
How Technology Could Preserve Abortion Rights
Abortion rights advocates are exploring how technology might preserve or even expand women’s access to abortion if the Supreme Court scales back Roe v. Wade. A nonprofit group is testing whether it's safe to let women take abortion pills in their own homes after taking screening tests and consulting with a doctor on their phones or computers. Because the study is part of an FDA clinical trial, the group isn’t bound by current rules requiring the drugs be administered in a doctor’s office or clinic. (Ravindranath and Rayasam, 7/29)

The Hill:
Oregon To Vote On Pro-Life Measure Banning State Funding For Abortions
Oregon voters will decide whether the state should continue providing funding for abortion in November's elections. The Secretary of State’s office announced Friday that an initiative proposing to amend the Oregon constitution to prohibit state spending, or the spending of local public money, on abortion had gathered enough signatures to be placed on the ballot, according to a report from Oregon Public Broadcasting. (Folley, 7/27)

The Hill:
House Passes 'Menstrual Equality' Measure To Allow Tampon, Pad Purchases With Health Spending Accounts
The House on Friday passed a bill allowing women to buy menstrual hygiene products with pre-tax money from health flexible spending accounts. Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) pushed for the legislation as part of her ongoing "fight for menstrual equality." ... Meng’s provision to the Restoring Access to Medication and Modernizing Health Savings Accounts Act established health flexible spending account funds that can be used on all products related to menstruation, including tampons, pads, liners, cups, sponges and other similar products. (Gstalter, 7/28)

Stat:
VCs Are Pouring Money Into Digital Health. Are They Making Smart Bets?
One of the hottest fields in health care investing is digital health. Companies in the space collectively raised $3.4 billion in venture capital in the first half of this year, spread across 193 deals, according to a count from the venture firm Rock Health. If that pace continues, the sector will set a new record this year — both in terms of number of deals and VC money invested overall. But is all that cash being invested wisely? To tease out that question, STAT sat down to chat with veteran health care VC Lisa Suennen, who works as the lead health care investor for General Electric’s corporate venture arm. (Robbins and Feuerstein, 7/30)

The Washington Post:
A Quarter Of Adults With Sprained Ankles Were Prescribed Opioids In The ER, Study Shows
A quarter of the adults who went to hospital emergency departments with sprained ankles were prescribed opioid painkillers, a study shows, in another sign of how commonly physicians turn to narcotics for even minor injuries. The state-by-state review revealed wide variation in the use of opioids for the sprains, from 40 percent in Arkansas to 2.8 percent in North Dakota. All but one of the nine states that recorded above-average opioid prescribing are in the South or Southwest. None is in the parts of Appalachia or New England that have been hit hardest by the opioid epidemic. (Bernstein, 7/27)

Stat:
Alzheimer's Study Sparks A New Round Of Debate Over The Amyloid Hypothesis
In the long-running debate over just what causes Alzheimer’s disease, one side looks to have scored a victory with new results with an in-development drug. But there’s enough variation in the data to ensure that the squabbling factions of Alzheimer’s will have plenty to fight about. At issue is the so-called amyloid hypothesis, a decades-old theory claiming that Alzheimer’s gradual degradation of the brain is caused by the accumulation of sticky plaques. And the new drug is BAN2401, designed by Biogen and Eisai to prevent those amyloid plaques from clustering and attack the clumps that already have. (Garde, 7/30)

Stat:
An Alzheimer’s Expert Digs Into The Data From The Biogen Trial
Puzzled by those controversial Alzheimer’s disease data from Biogen and Eisai? We asked an expert to break down what they mean for patients, for science, and for the future of what could be a promising treatment for a devastating disease. Dr. Howard Fillit, chief science officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, joined us to answer STAT Plus subscribers’ questions on BAN2401, the therapy from Biogen and Eisai that just completed Phase 2 testing. (Garde, 7/27)

The New York Times:
Recognizing Eating Disorders In Time To Help
Eating disorders pose serious hazards to adolescents and young adults and are often hidden from family, friends and even doctors, sometimes until the disorders cause lasting health damage and have become highly resistant to treatment. According to the Family Institute at Northwestern University, nearly 3 percent of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 have eating disorders. Boys as well as girls may be affected. Even when the disorder does not reach the level of a clinical diagnosis, some studies suggest that as many as half of teenage girls and 30 percent of boys have seriously distorted eating habits that can adversely affect them physically, academically, psychologically and socially. (Brody, 7/30)

The Washington Post:
Using Circadian Rhythms To Improve Cancer Treatment
Chi Van Dang generally declines to discuss the science that made him famous. A leading authority on cancer metabolism, he routinely is asked to speak about how tumors reprogram biochemical pathways to help them slurp up nutrients and how disrupting these noxious adaptations could be a powerful approach to treating cancer. (Dolgin, 7/29)

NPR:
How The Human Brain Codes Meaning In A Voice's Pitch
"Pitch change" — the vocal quality we use to emphasize words — is a crucial part of human communication, whether spoken or sung. Recent research from Dr. Edward Chang's lab at the University of California, San Francisco's epilepsy center has narrowed down which part of the brain controls our ability to regulate the pitch of our voices when we speak or sing— the part that enables us to differentiate between the utterances "Let's eat, Grandma" and "Let's eat Grandma." (Watson, 7/27)

Stat:
New Ebola Species Is Reported For First Time In A Decade
The family of Ebola viruses has just gotten a bit bigger. The government of Sierra Leone has announced that a new species of Ebola, the sixth, has been discovered there in bats. It has been called, provisionally, the Bombali virus, after a district in the north of the country where it was found. There’s no evidence the new virus has infected people, although EcoHealth Alliance, an environmental nonprofit group involved in the discovery, said on Twitter that it has the potential to infect human cells. (Branswell, 7/27)

The Washington Post:
Skin Infections Turned Out To Be Sign Of Serious Problem For Little Girl
The pediatrician was blunt but not unkind. Even so, her unequivocal message made Jan Wiese bristle. “You know, this is really not normal,” the Northern Virginia doctor said as she examined 2-year-old Lucy Wiese for the first time. Struck by the little girl’s medical history, especially her repeated skin infections, the doctor recommended that Lucy see a pediatric immunologist in Baltimore. (Boodman, 7/28)

NPR:
Mental Performance Can Be Hurt By Even Mild Dehydration
Was it hard to concentrate during that long meeting? Or, does the crossword seem a little tougher? You could be mildly dehydrated. A growing body of evidence finds that being just a little dehydrated is tied to a range of subtle effects — from mood changes to muddled thinking. "We find that when people are mildly dehydrated they really don't do as well on tasks that require complex processing or on tasks that require a lot of their attention," says Mindy Millard-Stafford, director of the Exercise Physiology Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology. She published an analysis of the evidence this month, based on 33 studies. (Aubrey, 7/30)

Los Angeles Times:
'Marijuana Is A Gift From God.' A Battle Over Pot Pits The Mormon Church Against An Unlikely Group: Other Mormons
Brian Stoll faced a dilemma as his wedding day approached. For more than a year, he had been smoking marijuana to treat severe back pain, but to remain in good standing with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and get married in the temple, he had to stop using pot. Since marijuana was illegal under Utah law, church leaders told him, it was forbidden. Stoll turned to an opioid painkiller and has continued using it since his marriage three years ago, despite unpleasant side effects and its inability to match the soothing qualities of marijuana. (Lee, 7/29)

The Associated Press:
Emma Stone, Jonah Hill Star In New ‘Fever Dream’ Comedy
Jonah Hill and Emma Stone are starring in a new TV series that tackles sensitive issues of mental illness and the pharmaceutical industry. The Netflix series, a black comedy titled “Maniac,” follows two participants of a murky late-stage pharmaceutical drug trial. Hill plays a man diagnosed with schizophrenia, while Stone plays a woman fixated on broken relationships. (7/29)

NPR:
Arizona Gov. Ducey Orders Clearer Disclosure Of Potential Medicaid Conflicts
In response to a joint investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and NPR into the influence of the drug industry on Medicaid, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey made changes to the state's Medicaid program Friday, including adding new transparency rules and kicking a doctor off a state committee. Ducey, a Republican, told Dr. Mohamed Ramadan, who accepted more than $700,000 in perks and payments from drugmakers over four and a half years, to step down as a volunteer member of the committee that helps the state decide which drugs should be preferred for Medicaid patients, the Arizona Republic first reported. (Whyte, 7/27)

The New York Times:
Mother Of Dead Woman Says Medics Told Her She Could Not Afford Ambulance
Nicole Black got a call around 1:45 a.m. on July 4 that her daughter Crystle Galloway had fallen in the bathroom of her Tampa, Fla., condominium and that something was wrong. She had hit her head, Ms. Galloway’s daughter said, and by the time Ms. Black raced from her home two blocks away, she was slumped over the bathtub, foaming at the mouth and her lips were swollen. Ms. Black called 911. Later that day, Ms. Galloway slipped into a coma. She died five days after. But weeks later, questions persist about what happened after the 911 call and whether race played a role in how Ms. Black and her daughter were treated. (Zaveri, 7/29)

The Associated Press:
Indictment Alleges 5 People Caged And Abused Autistic Woman
Five Louisiana residents now face federal charges for allegedly imprisoning and abusing an autistic woman, two years after they were arrested on state charges in the case. Prosecutors allege a litany of horrors against the 22-year-old victim in an indictment made public Thursday evening. They say the woman was kept in a cage outside the Tangipahoa Parish home where the suspects lived. Prosecutors said she was coerced into manual labor such as bathroom and kitchen cleaning and subjected to psychological and physical abuses: threats of harm or death if she didn't obey, beatings, being burned with a cigarette lighter and having human waste from a septic tank dumped on her. (7/27)

The Washington Post:
Robstown: 5 Dead After Apparent Murder-Suicide At Texas Nursing Center, Home
A gunman left a trail of five dead in a South Texas town Friday evening, including at a nursing home and a victim’s residence. Reports of gunfire around 7 p.m. led police to the Retama Manor Nursing Center in Robstown, west of the coastal city of Corpus Christi. Two men and a woman were found dead at the scene, authorities said. Investigators believe the dead at the nursing home include the shooter, city spokesman Herman Rodriguez told The Washington Post on Saturday. (Horton, 7/28)